We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods is a big deal in the supermarket sector, but its’s also deeply ironic and instructive for those familiar with the business philosophy of Whole Foods founder John Mackey— that business can and should operate on a higher moral plane, striving to manage itself in ways not just profitable but also that would serve some of the purposes of traditional philanthropy.

Re: Senate Health care bill, it's not called the Stupid party for nothing, A major 3rd party would be welcome, somewhat like the Republican Party of 1856. They really still don't see why Trump was elected.

This is a fiasco. The healthcare bill is important, really important. Yet they are just shoving something together and throwing it out there for a vote.

Before any of this, the Republicans should be talking to their constituents, clarifying what is bad and what is good about the current, and discuss the ways in which it is failing and really think deeply about the longterm effects. Get the public on board first, listen to the public first, take the time and effort to do it right.

This seems to be more about anti-Obama than doing anything constructive.

I post these comments on a perfectly versatile HP laptop that cost me less than US$200 during a sale at a drug store.

(By the way, downstairs in the basement, carefully packed away as a historical artifact, is my first computer, an AMSTRAD 640k which cost me about Canadian $800 in 1988 - over US$1,100 in 2017 dollars; think of the computing power you can get for a grand today!)

Say what you want about Bill Gates et al. but there is no doubt in my mind that he has been one of the key figures in making our online world accessible to everyone.

It could well be argued that when it comes to the general benefit of the individual across the world, evil old Microsofthas accomplished more than any government anywhere.

Very true. Computers without a standardized OS at this point in time would be a nightmare.

As it is, we've got Apple's OS, and Windows - not to mention the standardized apps like Office.

I have to deal with a lot of non-standard 'packages'. Lots of people thought they had a 'better idea' for everything from word processing to PDF handling - and that's fine if you can get a critical mass of people on your side. But Office is Office worldwide, the file formats are consistent around the world, and we don't have to worry about conversions from Joe's WP and Spreadsheet Mangler to Mary's Magnificent Freeware Electrotyper to Word - Microsoft took care of that.

There are 2 issues with this.
First - the AMOUNT Bill makes off each device is tiny. Probably less than a few cents. It's actually SMARTER to sell them at the current price, then voluntarily give the money away.
The way I explain this to my kids (when they complain about things like the price of gas) is that oil companies earn 5 cents per gallon. When people say "Oil companies should just cut their profits, and we'll all benefit." No, we won't. We would be 5 cents better off - that's it. Not enough to make a meaningful change in spending patterns. Oil companies sell so much oil, they optimize profits worldwide at very low margins. Bill does the same thing.

Second - Providing a good at a reasonable cost is what all businesses strive to do. Not all do, for a variety of reasons, but the goal is to OPTIMIZE (not always maximize) profit. Optimization varies at different levels of price. The price points chosen will be dependent on a variety of factors, so the current arrangement, whereby Bill makes X cents per sale, is what makes the most sense.

Once it's Bill's (or anyone's) money in his pocket - he gets to do whatever he wants with it. I don't care if he spends it on gummy bear candy. I'm glad he gives it away. It makes him feel better karmically, and someone benefits.

What I DO NOT WANT is Bill saying "hey - we can do SO MUCH MORE if we ONLY TAX PEOPLE more." Ummmm...no, that's not the right way to look at this. You're giving money voluntarily, and that's what you want to do. Good for you.

Feminists are like most of the factions on the left - their name is a shell and has no meaning. Their purpose has nothing to do with women but everything to do with tearing down Western Civilization. Since Islam is not Western - as practiced by most of its adherents it is anti-Western - Feminists see it as a vehicle to further their goals.

Today's political environment is highly politicized, and that has led to extreme rhetoric on both sides. "Bush is Hitler." "Obama is Hitler." "Trump is Hitler." Well, Hitler was Hitler.

On the political right, the President himself has egged on violence against protestors, and has called into question the very basis of shared factual reality. On the political left, there are organized protest movements that are used as cover by radicals. And the extremists on each side justify themselves by pointing to extremists on the other side.

To counter this, one can point to the stability of the U.S. Constitution. But keep in mind that the Constitution failed in the 1860s, before being refounded on the basis of equal protection of the laws.

Good riddance to the Russia myth ... it’s clear Russia (with Vladimir Putin’s full approval) orchestrated cyberattacks designed to influence the 2016 contest

Russia is probing U.S. defences, both cybersecurity defences, but weaknesses in the American body politic, including probing the Trump campaign for patsies.

The Russians have used similar techniques in Ukraine and other countries of eastern Europe. On two occasions, they hacked into Kiev's power grid. They didn't destroy the infrastructure, but that is something they could attempt in the future. Regardless, the purpose was to undermine confidence in the Ukrainian government. They have also used hacks in Eastern European countries to undermine the nascent democracies there.

This is only the thin edge of Russian attacks, and unless and until the U.S. takes the threat seriously, the U.S. and its allies will remain vulnerable. Instead, Trump says it's fake news, and seems to have no conception of the danger.

Absolutely correct. So why didn't the president stop it? Why did Obama simply allow it to continue? Why did the DNC refuse to cooperate, what were they afraid of? Collusion? Illegal activity? We need a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama administration on his collusion with Russians who hacked the election. What did Obama know and when did he know it?

The Obama Administration took action. They investigated the source of the hacks, informed the targets of the hacks, publicly released the conclusions of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and put in place sanctions against the Russians.

We didn't say Obama fixed the problem, which is one that has no easy solution, and will continue to be a threat to the U.S. and other nations for the foreseeable future. Rather, we pointed out that Obama took action, while Trump denies that the problem exists.

SO if the hack happened in Obama's term in office and IF he took care of it or at least did all he could between golf games then why are we still talking about it? It is Obama's baby, let's investigate Obama.

OneGuy: SO if the hack happened in Obama's term in office and IF he took care of it

The Obama Administration took action, but as we already stated, this is a problem with no easy solution, one that will continue to be an issue for the foreseeable future. Certainly it can be argued that Obama should have done more, but keep in mind that he was trying to avoid interfering in the election, and that the Senate Majority Leader had indicated he would not support the President if he pushed the issue.

Compare to Trump, who refused until yesterday to even acknowledge that Russian hacking had occurred.

No they didn't because they assumed Hillary would win and they simply didn't care.

"Compare to Trump, who refused until yesterday to even acknowledge that Russian hacking had occurred."

NOT TRUE! Every time this is brought up by the left wingnuts they say the "election" was hacked. It wasn't. Or they say the Russians tried to influence the election. They didn't. They did what they have been doing for years and that is hacking whatever they could to get information. They did this everyday of Obama's eight years in office and Obama never missed a golf game worrying about it. This entire thing is a bogus/fake news story thought up by Obama and the DNC to try to thwart Trump and deny the American people their right to vote.

That's clearly not the case. We know the FBI contacted both major political parties, as well as election officials around the country, warning of the attempt by Russia to hack into the U.S. election system, offering help to safeguard the system. The U.S. Intelligence Agency also put out a statement before the election concerning Russian hacking. After the election, the Obama Administration put in place diplomatic and economic sanctions.

OneGuy: Every time this is brought up by the left wingnuts they say the "election" was hacked.

Trump: Why did Democratic National Committee turn down the DHS offer to protect against hacks (long prior to election). It's all a big Dem HOAX!

OneGuy: They did this everyday of Obama's eight years in office and Obama never missed a golf game worrying about it.

The Obama Administration did take action, investigated the source of the hacks, informed the targets of the hacks, publicly released the conclusions of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and put in place sanctions against the Russians.

OneGuy: Why did the DNC refuse to cooperate, what were they afraid of?

They did cooperate, but they were somewhat busy with other matters at the time.

Zzzz:They did cooperate, but they were somewhat busy with other matters at the time.

“The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated,” the official said.

“This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier.”

drowningpuppies: The DNC did not want the FBI to search their servers. So why not?

According to former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, they didn't think they needed the assistance.

drowningpuppies: So why did the DNC lie about the FBI not requesting access to their servers?

Sounds like a miscommunication. The FBI offered assistance, but the DNC didn't think it needed assistance. In any case, CrowdStrike had access to the server logs and provided the FBI with what they required to determine the source of the hack.

DNC didn't think it needed assistance. There's them as make things happen, them as watch things happen, and them as wonder what happened; then there's the DNC, way out in left field all by itself (pun intended).

Uh, no. The DNC refused to cooperate until they lost the election.
Then they claimed they lost because their servers were hacked by Russians.
Even then they refused the FBI access and lied about their refusal..

Gee whiz. We asked which of our statements with which you took issue. Do you have problems with being specific? Should we guess?

Z: The Obama Administration did take action, investigated the source of the hacks, informed the targets of the hacks, publicly released the conclusions of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and put in place sanctions against the Russians.

Z: They (DNC) did cooperate, but they were somewhat busy with other matters at the time. {And what was worked out is that CrowdStrike, who also worked for the FBI, would examine the servers and share what they discovered with the FBI. }

Z: According to former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, they didn't think they needed the assistance.

Z: Sounds like a miscommunication. The FBI offered assistance, but the DNC didn't think it needed assistance. In any case, CrowdStrike had access to the server logs and provided the FBI with what they required to determine the source of the hack.

Z: The Russians hacked the DNC servers, but it the release of the emails devised for maximum political effect that impacted the election.

Z: This is why you can't have a nice country. Your country is attacked, the current president pretends it didn't happen, and you want to investigate the previous president who brought it to light.

drowningpuppies: re; "The Russians hacked the DNC servers, but it the release of the emails devised for maximum political effect that impacted the election."

Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security: The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations... These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.

drowningpuppies: re; "They (DNC) did cooperate "

The FBI did not contact the head of the DNC. By the time the FBI was involved, the DNC had already addressed the issue with CrowdStrike, which then provided data that the FBI needed to determine the source of the leaks.

Sounds like a typical miscommunication. The FBI offered help (which entailed access). The DNC didn't need help, so they turned down the offer, but had their security firm provide their findings. The FBI saw the offer of help as asking for access, while the DNC saw it as an offer of help, not a request for access for an investigation. That's why the the former Director of Homeland Security said he should have made the request more plain, and that they should have contacted the head of the DNC because of the nature of the threat.

This is certainly at least as plausible as your scenario, and more consistent with the facts, and with how the world actually works.

drowningpuppies: Kinda sorta after the election was lost by HIllary and to delegitimize Trump's win.

The Obama Administration announced their conclusions about Russian hacking well before the election, as Trump's own statements make clear: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." They put off sanctions until after the election, but efforts to address the attacks occurred throughout the year.

drowningpuppies: s for an investigation. That's why the the former Director of Homeland Security said he should have made the request

There's little doubt the Russians were attempting to cultivate illicit contacts within the Trump campaign.

• We know there were contacts between Flynn and Russian agents.
• We know that Stone had contact with Russian hackers.
• We know Trump called for the Russians to release email they may have stolen from the DNC.
• We know Trump has perversely denied there was any Russian hacking until just yesterday.
• We know the U.S. is still under threat, and that the Trump Administration has avoided taking any actions against the Russians.

Obama probably should have taken more stringent action against Putin and Russia, but it's hard imagine the howls from people, such as yourself, if he had done so.

Why would there be howls from people like myself if Obama actually faced up to a threat to our nation?
The howls come from people like myself when he does little about it and then tries it to undermine a legitimate election and hamstring the incoming President..

The FBI and CIA blew it on 9/11 and they haven't shown any evidence of having gained competence since. They are the "police" that the ruling elite call for when they are being politically or financially threatened....that seems to be their only purpose.

"Four Reasons Why College Degrees Are Becoming Useless - College dropouts are doing just fine, bucking the stereotype."

To be fair, the liberal arts education was never conceived to be economically useful, except in the presumption that it was a prerequisite to "lead" and therefore extract tribute from the "professional," "vocational," "uneducated."

QUOTE:

In the precapitalistic ages writing was an unremunerative art. Blacksmiths and shoemakers could make a living, but authors could not. Writing was a liberal art, a hobby, but not a profession. It was a noble pursuit of wealthy people, of kings, grandees and statesmen, of patricians and other gentlemen of independent means. It was practiced in spare time by bishops and monks, university teachers and soldiers. The penniless man whom an irresistible impulse prompted to write had first to secure some source of revenue other than authorship.

"Students launch libertarian club at small Oregon college and get harassed, investigated, condemned"

Let's guess, a now mislabeled liberal arts college? But, the good news is that the college is abandoning all that came of the icky industrial revolution, well, except for the creature comforts. But those radical ideas about natural rights and all men (and women) created equal, that is easy for them to give up.

QUOTE:

The theme in liberalism, you see, is equality, derived from the equal natural rights of each. Though a commonplace now, the liberal idea that each person should have equal rights was in the eighteenth century highly original, and was to many people shocking. In earlier centuries of agriculture and its accompanying hierarchy a liberal equality was held in fact to be quite absurd. And dangerous.

--Manifesto for a New American Liberalism, or
How to Be a Humane Libertarian
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Federal law allows individuals/families to camp for 14 days on BLM and other federal land. It specifically does not allow commercial or private groups to do this. The Rainbows are in violation of federal law.

Ranchers fume as ‘Rainbow Family’ set to camp on federal land in Oregon

QUOTE:

The U.S. Forest Service acknowledged there isn’t much it can do about a “Rainbow Family” gathering expected to bring thousands of counter-culture types to the Malheur National Forest in Eastern Oregon over the next two weeks.

The organizers don’t have a permit, and the Forest Service’s response to that has angered area residents such as rancher Loren Stout, who lives near the gathering spot and has a federal grazing permit on land adjacent to it.

He said the Forest Service would punish ranchers if they ignored permit requirements and tapped a spring for drinking water like the Rainbow Family has done. Stout said it took him two years to get a National Environmental Policy Act permit to drill an exploratory mining hole.

“People are furious over this,” Stout said. “Not because it’s a friggin’ bunch of hippies, it’s the different standards.”

. . . . the Forest Service will not attempt to stop the gathering.

“It’s a risk-based decision,” he said. “To try and kick them off the land would present a danger to employees and the public.”

One wonders if this is yet another illustration of Bureaucracy only pushing people around that can't push back or do they tacitly agree with the tenets of the "Rainbow Family" and therefore prefer to have a blind eye?

The story about the Minnesota Civil Rights Administration stating that "hate speech" is against the law needs updating. I clicked through on the links and apparently the references to speech on that page are now gone.

"And now CEO Brian Goldner boldly claims that gender doesn’t even exist."
That is correct. Look at the APA definition of gender. I am totally confused by the first sentence. I have met lots of males and females but never a neuter.

Gender (n): the condition of being male, female, or neuter. In a human context, the distinction between gender and SEX reflects the usage of these terms: Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e., masculinity or femininity.).

The problem here rests in the twofold meaning of the word gender in English:

1. Grammatical gender pertains to the classification of nouns. In English, this function is much diminished relative to many other languages (e.g. French, German, Russian and so forth) . The key thing to keep in mind is that gender applies to the words themselves not the people and things those words represent. Table in French is feminine but no French speaker considers a table to be a female; likewise no German would consider a girl wasn't female because the word that described her was neuter.

2. Gender as a synonym for sex. This is essentially an English-language thing (in French, genre either means something like sort, kind, type or category or, in terms of language, grammatical gender. Note that it is not used to mean sex; French speakers use the word sexe for that). The word gender really only took on its modern English (and basically euphemistic) meaning in the 20th Century as the word sextook on (Shock! Horror!)erotic overtones.

drowningpuppies: Why would there be howls from people like myself if Obama actually faced up to a threat to our nation?

Why would there have been a significant strain of birtherism in the Republican Party? Why would the American people elect a birther as president? Could be be because people have ideological presuppositions which color their perceptions.

We're sure you can point to where you howled against Trump calling for the Russians to release stolen emails ...

It can be argued that Obama should have done more, though he was balancing that with the problem of the government meddling in the election. Nevertheless, the Obama Administration did take action, including the U.S. Intelligence Community releasing their conclusion about Russian hacking in the election process. Compare to Trump, who until just the other day, continued to claim that Russian hacking was fake news.

There is nothing untoward with Obama openly taking sides in a political contest.

drowningpuppies: while spying on and unmasking Trump's campaign staff..

There's no evidence at this point to support a claim of using the government's intelligence apparatus to interfere in the election. Indeed, it appears that the Obama Administration actually minimized interference by not more strongly confronting Russia on election meddeling.

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: